Mask of the Kore

“Koré” is the spirit of the waters. Its brotherhood pursues two objectives:

1.- Return to the human being its original harmony overshadowed by circumcision.

2.- Allow the human being to recover, on the spiritual plane, his primitive femininity, his mystical union with God and the triumph over death.

“Koré” activates the moral and intellectual formation of being. No one can claim any other initiation after having participated in the “Koré” rituals. The great festival of “Koré” with the initiation ritual takes place every two years and the practices and teachings are spread over two periods, every two consecutive years.

First time: The immortality to which the being aspires can only be obtained after a symbolic death. It is in this first part that the neophytes are “killed” and initiated. It starts with the full moon and lasts for fifteen days.

Second time: It concerns the theomorphosis of being, which takes place twelve months later. The ceremony begins with a ritual theft of the bags with their clothes and belongings, which the neophytes hide in a hidden place and their owners will only be able to recover them by paying for some cauris that the neophytes will deliver to the head of the brotherhood who will instead introduce a small stone into the bags. After ten sessions of ritual theft and six stones in the bags, the chief announces the date of the next ritual. The ritual theft of their bags is assimilated to the death and reincarnation of humans. The Bambara think that the market square symbolizes the world and the bags or pulls them out of the street vendors symbolize men.

The masks with a human face represent “Faro”, creator and guide of the universe. The Bambara They think it is Faro who gives men the conscience, the sense of order and the feelings of responsibility. Faro watches over all human work and the justice of men.

This mascra has its eyes entangled, small mouth and ears with earrings lined by a blue beads and another yellow and a lock of red fiber. The headdress in the shape of a helmet with parallel vertical stretch marks and embossed.